He died from an overdose of prescription drugs on April 12, 1989. His landlord found him dead in his Solebury Township apartment.

Before he died, even Hoffman would have agreed that his days in the spotlight were behind him.

Now, it appears, he is getting to be real famous again.

For example, the story of Hoffman's life is showing up on the shelves in bookstores.

There is a short documentary on Hoffman playing in the art film houses in New York titled "My Dinner with Abbie." Since I'm not one to drop in on art film houses in New York, I haven't seen it, but I have read reviews of the film and they generally praise the movie and its subject. Maybe it will come to cable.

And then, on the newsstands last week, I noticed this headline on the cover of a magazine: "Abbie Hoffman: The Last Interview."

The interview appears in the current issue of Mother Jones, a somewhat left-leaning news magazine that features advertisements for Che Guevara T-shirts and books about the greenhouse effect.

Nevertheless, Mother Jones was stacked right there next to Newsweek and Time, so I plunked down $2.50 to read what Hoffman had to say in his last interview.

Most of the interview deals with Hoffman's anti-war activism during the '60s and his flight from justice on a drug charge during the '70s. The magazine describes Hoffman as a manic-depressive who enjoyed being the center of attention, but dwells little on the Point Pleasant water project.

That was somewhat disappointing. Hoffman spent much of the last seven years of his life in Bucks County leading the fight against the Point Pleasant water project. It's a significant part of the man's history, yet the issue is given little ink in the interview.

I should also point out here that Mother Jones displayed a genuine ignorance of what the Point Pleasant water project is all about. For instance, the magazine said the project was built by Philadelphia Electric Co. (false) and that the whole fight was over something called "the nuclear development of the Delaware River."

But the magazine did have this to say about Hoffman and Point Pleasant:

"Abbie said it made him feel patriotic to fight for land and water and that he liked battles that taught people how democracy did and didn't work. And here was a struggle taking place in the birthplace of American democracy."

Interesting comment from Hoffman, considering the fact that he spent much of his life, including his years in Bucks County, fending off criticism that he was a most unpatriotic American.

After all, isn't it true that Hoffman was once sentenced to jail for wearing a shirt stitched from an American flag? Somehow, that doesn't seem to be much of a crime now that the U.S. Supreme Court says it is legal to burn American flags, and Congress won't support a constitutional amendment banning flag desecration.

And isn't it true that Hoffman refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance whenever he visited the meetings of the Bucks County commissioners?

Hardly the stuff of patriotism, but I guess Hoffman thought he was patriotic in his own way. Now that he's dead and once again famous, I certainly won't argue the point.